Fear The Walking Dead Could Also End On A Cliffhanger
People frustrated by cliffhangers weren’t pleased with how The Walking Dead ended its sixth season, but there could be more unresolved plot threads on the way. According to Dave Erickson, showrunner for Fear The Walking Dead (which just began its second season last Sunday), the sister series could also take a break on a cliffhanger. Actually, there’s no “maybe” about it — he outright says it does.
“The short answer is … yes,” he told THR. Keep in mind, though, he’s talking about a midseason cliffhanger — presumably we’ll have to wait a shorter amount of time for any answers the first seven episodes won’t give us.
As for the long answer, Erickson said you “need something that feels organic and driven. The ideal cliffhanger, the ideal churn for any show — and this can be a novel or a TV show or a movie — but you want it to feel inevitable. You want that moment of shock and surprise but when you catch your breath, you want to feel that yes, there’s no other way that could have gone down. That’s always the goal. So yes, in that regard, when we get to the writers’ room and start building out a season, it’s always with an eye toward something that is going to close out that chapter and make the first seven episodes feel satisfying but also something that in so doing it also lays the seeds for what’s going to come in the back half.”
Erickson wouldn’t confirm what the midseason cliffhanger would be about, and there’s no reason why he would when just one of the Season Two episodes have aired. But he did hint that the broader storyline would stem from Strand’s secret agenda. “Clearly he has an idea of where he’s going. Daniel points out that he was packing before the bombs fell and had no intention of staying in that house. So where is he taking them? Strand suggests San Diego but we don’t know if San Diego is safer than L.A. It’s quite tenuous. There’s an initial relief mixed with mourning and grief but the initial relief to be clear of land and get away from that catastrophe. And now it shifts to the question of: Who who can we trust? If we can’t trust Strand, who is the captain of the boat, what do we do?”